Why Don't You Go With Him?

It was said as simply as those six words.

It wasn't the first time the idea was suggested, and it certainly wasn't the first time I had considered it.

But it seemed that the germ of a possibility so alarming, at the time incredulous and fantastic, hadn't faded away into thin air like the other ideas I had.

Sometimes, the situation around you, and the dizzying variety options that are available, seem to be nothing more than a big game of trade-off. All of them different equations that sum up to an algebraic zero-sum game of life.

Stay with this job and gain security, or take another and get more money. Move to that apartment for more comfort, or stay in this apartment and save on rent. Take this new project for experience, or stay with current portfolio for expertise. Eat the dessert and enjoy it, or decline and preserve a figure.

How many of us are actually faced with an option where the + column is more than the - column? When the credits are more than the debits?

Of course, the prevailing wisdom is "do what you want". Yet want, is a fickle thing. Want, is the motivator for the adventurous heart, and also the voice that stills the hand. Let's face it, we want everything - it's a question of what we want MORE, or LESS.

Do I want to be happy? Loved? Free? Financially secure? Healthy? Have children? Professionally successful? Intellectually fulfilled? Spiritually at peace? Inspired? Content?

This is the gordian knot that I've been trying to unravel for the past year. Short-term vs long-term, money vs life, security vs adventure.

I know, and people have told me, that it all boils down to expectations and detachment. Don't expect too much, they say. Detach yourself from material things, and the decision is so much clearer. It only takes a second to decide, as the prevailing wisdom goes.

So the second is drawing nearer, as I am pondering which path to take.

There are several job options, all of which have varying levels of stress, commitment, locales, and monetary incentives. There are trade-offs among all of them. Beneath that, the more fundamental decision of whether to continue in this career or strike into a new one, or go into academia. And even deeper, the decision to consider "me", or consider "him", or to put "us" ahead of all else.

He has gotten the opportunity that he has been looking for. A chance to go with a global NGO to places where he can be a part of the greater picture, helping to rebuild the world from its mad-made and human disasters, a little bit at a time.

He will be gone, far away, for a long time. I will see him again, of course (for the alternative is impossible to contemplate). But he will be away experiencing the wonder of a different world, whilst I would be here, still working on the pluses and minuses of my little decision matrix, secure in my own little world bound by my comfort zones. Missing the loving warmth, and the soul-stirring inspiration from a new experience shared with another. Yet still secure in that the mortgage is getting paid, savings are growing, families are supported and the safety net is intact.

I don't know which way to go. And as time goes by, the not-knowing is twisting the gordian knot tighter and tighter.

So why don't I go with him? I can think of a million reasons why not, but none of them are comparable to the one reason why I should.

That maybe, just maybe, this is the chance that I've been unknowingly waiting for. All my life I've made decisions that I thought were difficult ones, fraught with potential missteps and probable failure.

Somehow, my gut tells me, that this would not be one of them.

Not a damsel hanging on to her man, wilting away in her own linens while he toils away with the dislocated and disadvantaged. But being a contributor myself, somehow, some way, to the greater good. And for my inner satisfaction. Save my own soul.

So dare I? Go with him? Dare I take that leap.. Across the divide between the known, and the unknown.

Watch this space. Akan Datang.